The Storm in the Heart of the Sun
by I Took the One Less Travelled
Summary: Missing scene from Human Nature/Family of Blood. When contemplating opening the watch, John asks Martha about the woman in his dreams, the one who is always walking away from him. Ten/Rose, John/Joan Redfern.


"Am I not good enough?" John asked, anguished. Then he suddenly changed tacks, turned his head away from Joan Redfern entirely.

"Martha?"

"Yes?"

"Is she real?"

Martha looked at him for a second, and then she closed her eyes. "Rose?"

"Yes. Rose. Is she real? Does he know her? Where is she?"

Martha stood carefully, John, Joan and Timothy watching her warily. She would be so glad when this was over and she could have her normal clothes back—she just didn't feel like herself, dressed like this.

"Yes," Martha finally answered, trying to keep the hurt out of her tone. Even when he was human, and had no true memory of either of them, Rose was always beating her, always better than her. Even when the human woman that he _had_ fallen in love with was sitting right there and he had no memory of Rose Tyler, still, Rose was on his mind.

"Where is she?" John repeated intently, eyes focused on hers. "Why isn't she here? Why is she always walking away from me?"

Martha shook her head. "I don't know. He lost her, he doesn't like to talk about it. I don't know why she walks away in your dreams—when she left, it wasn't voluntarily. She's trapped somewhere, and he can't get to her."

"_Why_?" John demanded. "If he's as marvelous as you claim, why can't he get to her? Why can't he save the woman that he loves?"

"I don't know," Martha repeated, flinching. She had, of course, always suspected the nature of the Doctor's feelings for Rose Tyler, even if he had stated that they had never been romantically involved. But to hear that he loved her, so baldly stated...

"If he can't even do _that_, what good is he?"

"John, whatever happened, he says that it was permanent," Martha said flatly, wanting to crush her own feelings for a man that would never return them, at the same time as not shamelessly use Rose's memory to convince him to open the watch.

Of course he needed to open the watch. But it had to be his choice. And maybe, just a little bit selfishly, she didn't want all of his motivations be to surrounding Rose Tyler again.

"He can't get her back, John, or he would have done it already," Martha continued. "He's said as much himself."

"He loves her so much."

Martha, John and Joan all turned to look at Timothy, still clutching the fob watch in his hand. "They always leave him eventually, but she promised him forever. And she was torn from him. He knew. He knew that she couldn't give him forever, but he selfishly wanted to take it anyway."

Timothy paused. "How do I know that? How do I know that, if he thought it would work, he would send two universes sliding into the void, just for another day with her? What does that even mean, Martha?"

"I don't know," Martha said helplessly. "Like I said, he doesn't like to talk about her. And he _hates_ Torchwood, so I'm sure that they had something to do with her disappearance. Whatever Torchwood is."

"The Bad Wolf," Timothy said, in a haunting tone. For some reason, Martha thought that the words sounded vaguely familiar. "If she could really see all that is, all that was, and all that ever could be, then why didn't she stop this? Why didn't she save herself?"

Martha realized abruptly that Timothy had the watch open, the light swirling on the inside. "Why couldn't he save her?" The question was out before she could stop it, finally able to ask the question without tearing the Doctor apart.

"She held on. She came back to him and she held on, but it wasn't enough, and he couldn't catch her." Timothy sounded awed and sad and angry all at the same time, the light from the watch illuminating his face. "He promised to catch her always, and he wasn't there to catch her. He just had to watch as she was torn away from him. And then, at the end, he didn't even have the strength to tell her."

Joan choked on a sob. When it had been a story in John's Journal of Impossible Things, she had thought that it sounded like a great romantic adventure with a bittersweet ending. This man—this Doctor, he wasn't her John. He wasn't the man that she loved, and she knew that she would never have had the strength to love him.

Martha clearly did. Or thought that she did, at any rate. But Joan, from an outsider's perspective, could see that she couldn't—that she thought that he was a remarkable man, that she adored him, but that she wasn't in love with him, not the way that he would have needed her to be. Martha Jones was in no way capable of withstanding the storm that was the Doctor, and she didn't truly love him enough to try.

But this Rose? She had loved him. She had loved him across galaxies and solar systems, through all of time and space, and she had been strong enough to withstand his power. His personal sun, right in the middle of his planet Gallifrey.

John paused. "Can he get her back?"

"No," Timothy answered. "Or, at least he thinks that he can't."

"Is she—dead?" Martha asked in a subdued tone.

"No," Timothy answered instantly. "She's alive. But she can't get back to him."

Joan took John's hand. "I need to open the watch," John said. Joan closed her eyes. She had known that it was foregone conclusion, that John would open the watch. That the man that she had fallen in love with would be gone.

Then she looked at him, and nodded.

...

She felt sort of bad, for saying that it was his fault that people had died. But honestly, it was justified.

"Doctor," Joan called at his retreating back.

"Yes?"

"Do you love her?"

He turned and looked at her, those infinite eyes, somehow so different from John's. This man had seen eternity pass before his unaging face, had watched empires rise and fall, had burned planets and saved galaxies. Her life was less than a blink to him, and he terrified her.

"Oh, yes," he said.

"Go and find her," Joan prompted.

He was so _sad_. "I can't, Joan. She's lost to me. Forever."

"I thought that the Doctor didn't know the meaning of the word impossible," Joan answered, offering him a—not _smile_ exactly, more like the slightest tilt to her lips.

"I wish that I didn't," the Doctor answered.


End file.
